.

"...Not every smile
means I'm laughing inside..."

I have trapped myself.
No one takes me seriously.
They think I am incapable of being sensitive, of being sad, of letting things get me down.
I make a lot of jokes. That doesn't mean that is all I do.
Even us clowns get sad sometimes.
We may paint our faces with smiles, but there are tears in our eyes.

I have heard from a few people lately that they wouldn't think of me as ever being sad or sensitive.
I have no one to blame but myself because that is all I let most people see.
But it's starting to wear on me that no one except my absolute closest friends can even SENSE that side of me.

The eternal optimist comedian doesn't stop talking to everyone they know for a month and keep their phone off for 2 weeks straight because they are always in a good mood.
In fact, it's probably the opposite.

That was a good month, back in February.
I ache to do that again, go into hermit mode as Irene calls it.
Have more time where I need no one and nothing and can marinate in introspection. I have had too much to do lately. I haven't had a free block of time in which to disappear into in a very long while. Because when I go, I go full-force into self-made oblivion, and it gets very hard to come back out.
Apparently no one is important enough, or matters enough, for me to not become a ghost to them. The one I thought could keep me grounded was disposed of, even though it almost killed me to do it. But I got away nonetheless. No one get's in, truly. Realize it. Accept it. You're better off understanding me and knowing I could be gone in an instant at any time so you're better prepared for when it happens.

All my relationships come with expiration dates. Some stay fresh longer than others.
But they all rot after a year or 2.


This has been the most emotional year of my life, and I have a lot of words to show for it.
Page upon page of emotion that I have written down as proof that I have actual feelings and am not made of stone.

I have changed so much this year, and learned an incredibly amount about myself. To know me a year ago is to have known a completely different person.

Hopefully in another year I will be even more of a stranger to who I used to be.